Heiner Kroke, CEO of ricardo.ch hosted the Web Monday event in Zurich’s Technopark. Marc P. Bernegger, co-founder of amiando and partner of Next Generation Finance Invest, presented his new startup c-crowd.com. Pascal Mathis talked about the recent development and expansion plans of GetYourGuide.com.
Mobile Monday: Introduction by Host Heiner Kroke, CEO ricardo.ch
ricardo.ch is Switzerland’s online auction market leader with 115 employees based in Zug of which 30 IT staff. They focus on Swiss market peculiarities and therefore have an advantage against global players.
In Switzerland eBay.ch has a 14% market share as compared to ricardo.ch’s 86% in terms of page views. ricardo.ch is slightly above the Glatt Zentrum regarding gross revenue, i.e. ricardo.ch can be seen as Switzerland’s largest shopping mall.
auto.ricardo.ch is Switzerland’s number 2 car site and shops.ricardo.ch and tradus.ch, a free classifieds website, are the latest additions to the website.
The mobile version of the different functionalities is approximately at the 0.8 stage with different versions for different operating systems. iPhone, Android are the must haves, Ovi was cheap to get.
A recent ricardo blog rounds off the offering since March 2011.
Marc Bernegger, Co-Founder c-crowd
c-crowd.com is a website that allows users to fund startups with sums starting at 1’000.- or 50.- for charity projects. Everybody can access the platform thus allowing not only venture capitalists or business angels to invest in promising endeavours.
Swiss regulatory limitations are very strict and c-crowd has to accomodate for the according legal and financial hurdles.
New startups usually are not easily accessible so c-crowd helps them to get exposure to potential investors. c-crowd performs a due diligence and then promotes the projects according to the financial needs.
The site has enjoyed nice media coverage lately with a comprehensive article in Tages Anzeiger.
The business model is transaction based. A 10% fee is due for startups including legal fees and a 5% fee for charities. Project sizes vary between CHF 50’000.- and 400’000.-. c-crowd may be the lead investor or an additional financial source.
The marketing to the crowd is partly via traditional multipliers but also via social media.
Gbanga is one of the few projects that c-crowd.com has started with yet. I wrote about Gbanga in German before.
c-crowd offers equity for money as compared to cofundit.ch which does mezzanin financing as presented in a former Web Monday event. c-crowd’s model makes the legal structure more complex. In the long term the aim is to offer a c-crowd fund.
GetYourGuide.com
Tours & activities are the next frontier in online travel. The inventory is not as transparent yet as in other travel segments and not structured enough for tour operator IT systems.
The business model works similarly to ricardo.ch’s: Suppliers, 1100 as of May 2010, upload their product in a CMS in a structured way.
Depending on the service a 20% – 30% commission fee is due.
There’s the usual travel industry distribution partners, among other Tripadvisor.com They like to work with GetYourGuide since the specialised inventory is not available in a structured way otherwise.
A visually very attractive WordPress travel blog helps with the start-up’s promotion.
Given the distribution deal with Tripadvisor.com an additional office will open in the U.S. in order to accomodate for the time shift.
Product managers check whether suppliers have business licenses, insurances and registrations with tourist boards, etc. Suppliers are not allowed to offer the same product at a lower price on their own site. According to the terms & conditions if anything they must be cheaper on GetYourGuide.com.
ZKB, the five young founders and Roland Zeller from travel.ch are the shareholders.
Good luck!